Faceless
by Jim Robb
If a wizard is invited to appear before the Council of Mages it is usually a good thing, but if summoned it is invariably bad. Tharnic had been summoned. He stood before the Council, wearing the most honest-looking face he possessed, fearing what would come next.
The Grand Mage, seated between and slightly above his two fellow councilors, spoke first. He was from a time centuries past when it was the fashion for wizards to cultivate a fearsome aspect, and his sharp teeth and pointed tongue gave his words the threatening quality of a snake’s hissing. “Tharnic the Wizard, you stand accused of misusing your abilities—specifically, that you have misappropriated faces.”
“To be able to take a face is held to be a dark magic of the most advanced sort,” said the First Councilor, seated to the Grand Mage’s right. “Accordingly, its use is permissible only in cases of dire circumstance, to ensure self-preservation or to protect the lives of innocents. Moreover, a face so taken is to be retained only while necessity compels. You, however, are accused of collecting the faces you have taken as a demonstration of your prowess, and possibly even for mere amusement.”
Now the Second Councilor, who up until now had sat quietly and nursed a dour expression, took his turn. “We have investigated this accusation and determined it to be well-founded.”
The Grand Mage leaned forward. “Have you anything to say in your defense?” he asked.
Wearing a face not his own, and with more than a dozen faces hanging from his belt in plain view, Tharnic decided there was little he could say that might benefit his cause, and much that could do him ill. “No, Your Puissance,” he said.
The Grand Mage sat back in his chair and polled his fellow Councilors by eye. “Then we find you guilty,” he said, “and sentence you to a fitting punishment.”
“Soon you will know its nature,” said the First Councilor.
“And you yourself shall determine its extent,” the Second Councilor said.
“You are dismissed,” the Grand Mage said, and waved his hand.
Tharnic found himself standing beside the fountain in the middle of the town square. All around him people bustled about on various errands. Soon, however, Tharnic became aware of a change in their behavior. They would glance at him, look away, and then look at him again. Soon, instead of moving purposely they were simply milling about, staring at him while trying to give the appearance of not staring.
Tharnic turned and looked into the pool surrounding the fountain.
He had no face.
Tharnic reached for one of the faces hanging from his belt, but it shot from his grasp as soon as he touched it. He reached for another, and then another, with the same result. Soon a half-score of faces floated in the air before him.
He reached for one of the floating faces, but as he did so chains appeared and encumbered his wrist. He lowered his hand and the chains disappeared. Again he reached for one of the faces before him, this time with his other hand, and again the chains appeared.
Tharnic looked about him again. Now the townspeople’s faces began to show scorn and disrespect, the usual reaction engendered by the faceless. Soon, Tharnic knew, would follow taunting and worse. He turned and fled. A few children chased him for a short distance, but he outpaced them and reached his lair without incident. He slammed the door behind him and threw the bolt into place.
The floating faces had followed close behind. Most still wore their normal and varied expressions, but two of them now bore amused grins.
Tharnic reached for one of the faces, and again the chains prevented it. He held his arms out to keep the chains from disappearing again so he could examine them. A padlock dangled from his left wrist and three keys from his right. Each key bore an inscription, but he could not read the words. The keys were clearly far too large to fit the padlock. Worse, he realized the padlock did not actually secure anything; it merely hung from the last link of a short length of chain.
He could see no way to rid himself of the chains and, abandoning the attempt, he examined himself in the looking glass. He still had eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but they were static objects isolated on a featureless background incapable of portraying expression. They no longer constituted a face, no more than they would have were they arranged on a platter. As he stared at his non-appearance he began to feel a sense of self-loathing. Quickly he turned from the looking glass.
Days turned into weeks. Tharnic found that any spell that might have helped him was now beyond his ability to cast. He left his lair only to purchase food and drink, increasingly the latter. He made these sorties late in the afternoon on dark, cloudy days and pulled his hat down low so that the townspeople might not see his condition, but they always knew. Soon the mocking whispers would start.
Look at him, he is defaced.
Do you see? He has lost face.
He would make his purchases as quickly as possible so as to leave before the townspeople’s disdain took on physical expression, but more than once flung horse manure hastened his departure.
One day, a few months into Tharnic’s ordeal, he started imbibing early and passed out before noon. He awoke in mid-afternoon with a splitting pain in his head and the taste of vomit in his mouth. The floating faces made plain their amusement at Tharnic’s condition and predicament.
“No more!” Tharnic shouted at them. “If you are of no use to me, let me then be rid of you!” He rose from his chair and stumbled to the lectern upon which his book of enchantments rested. Finding the correct page, he spoke the words that would release the faces to return to their owners.
The spell failed. The faces remained, their contemptuous laughter now taking on a condescending note.
Tharnic staggered back against his table, reached for the bottle, and emptied it of its remaining contents in a single draught. Spinning half around, he threw the bottle into the fireplace before collapsing back onto the bench. He gazed out the window, where the world glowed invitingly in the bright sunshine, a world that was now denied to him — to him, and all like him.
To all like him…
He had been sentenced to facelessness and, he now realized, deservedly so. However, those he had so victimized had done nothing to merit such a punishment. Strengthened now by a higher motivation, he strode to the lectern and spoke the incantation again, and this time was able to do so in the firm, authoritative tone he had lost since his encounter with the Grand Council.
The faces whirled about him and then, one by one, flew into the fireplace, up the chimney, and out of sight.
Tharnic felt a strange lightness that was as much physical as spiritual. He looked down and saw the chains that had encumbered his wrists were gone. As he looked on, the padlock suspended from his left wrist fell open before it and the chain supporting it disappeared. Only the three chains and the keys they tethered remained, and he realized he could read the word inscribed on each key. Regret. Restitution. Resolve.
Now he became aware of an object hanging from his belt. It looked like a small, squat strongbox, and the keyhole was of a size to accept the keys. Somehow he knew the third key would open it, and sure enough, it did. The keys and their chains disappeared as he opened the box.
In the box was a face — his own face.
Slowly he reached into the box, fearing this face would flee from him as had the others, but it did not. Grasping it, he lifted it from the box and with both hands placed it against his head while uttering the incantation. The face settled into position and became one with him.
He turned to the looking glass. His own face stared back at him.
Tharnic dashed into the street without even pausing to don his hat. He ran to the marketplace, rejoicing in the end of his punishment and the restoration of his abilities, and performed small incantations for the townsfolk without levying his usual fee until the market closed. Upon returning to his lair, he vowed never again to take a face, whatever the circumstance.
He remained true to his pledge for more than three centuries, not breaking it until the fifth year of his appointment as Second Councilor—but that is another tale.
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Jim Robb‘s stories have previously appeared in print and online periodicals, including AE and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and in a number of anthologies, most recently “Space Force: Building the Legacy”, “Dear Leader Tales”, and “Space Marines”.